Automotive Author：Yizhou Gu Editor：Luke Sheehan Oct 28, 2020 10:29 AM (GMT+8)

As the leader of Chinese autonomous driving startups, the rocket financing of Pony.ai shows the recent hot trend of the autonomous driving industry.

Image Credit: EqualOcean

Chinese autonomous driving (AD) technology startup Pony.ai finished its USD 300 million financing on October 27. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) led the investment with near USD 200 million. Chinese automobile giant FAW group also participated in the investment.

After this round of funding, Pony.ai’s estimated value is doubled to USD 6 billion. Pony.ai has attracted USD 1 billion accumulated funding. Pony.ai is now the first among all Chinese autonomous vehicle startups with respect to value and aggregate financing.

With IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital as angel investors, Pony.ai was founded in 2016. It focuses on L4 autonomous driving platforms and systems. Its core technologies include perception, planning & control, AD platform integration, etc. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Pony.ai has R&D centers also in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. Pony.ai has finished 1,500,000+ km of road tests.

In February 2020, Pony.ai collected about USD 5 billion in funding. The investment was led by Toyota and pushed Pony.ai’s value to USD 3 Billion. Pony.ai had a rapid development in 2020.